Handout from the Staff Technology Workshop held October 21st, 2010 Social Networking Sites: facebook, LinkedIn, twitter Topics we covered: • privacy and security settings • recent updates and how to use them • power user tips & tricks

1. Staff Technology Workshops
Social Networking Sites:
October 21
Introduction
Linkedin is intended primarily for professional networking – resume & contacts
Facebook is the largest social network, connecting to people from all parts of life
Twitter sends out short, quick updates
Social Sites, Social Issues: Etiquette, Privacy, and Security
Etiquette: Think carefully about adding connections or asking for recommendations
Privacy: Don’t want everyone to see your full history? Don’t want people to contact you?
Don’t want to share your contact lists? There are settings for that.
Security: If you sign up for update e-mails, read them to be sure they’re legitimate –
spammers have copied LinkedIn e-mails for “phishing” attacks. Or go to the site directly.
Etiquette: Who sees what you post? What are your friends comfortable sharing? Use direct
messages or set up lists or groups to share information with only some of your friends.
Privacy: These settings are sometimes complicated, but take the time to go through them
carefully once review your settings when Facebook makes changes to privacy options.
Security: Be careful giving permission to apps (surveys, etc.), clicking “like” to win anything,
or opening odd links from friends – there are more Facebook viruses and spam now.
Etiquette: Be careful about over-sharing and spamming. If you link to other sites, be selective.
What is normal in one setting may be info overload on sites with other contacts and norms.
Privacy: There are only two general options: everything private or everything public. You can
also use direct messages if you need to ask one person something privately.
Security: Link shorteners have been used to spread spambots and viruses. If you use Bit.ly and
tinyURL, they have tools to help you preview the destination so you can be sure it’s accurate.

2. Professional Use
• Professional Development – get information and updates to keep up on your field
• Networking – connect to people you’ve known or would like to know
• Reputation Management – highlight your own expertise, control your online presence
• Q&A Tools – get help and give back, a great way to again highlight your own expertise
• Join a Conversation – look for active groups or start one yourself on a relevant topic
Power User Tools
Groups: For alumni, colleagues, professional organizations, tools, hobbies, etc.
Companies: Interested in changes at a specific organization? You can now follow the whole
institution directly to see who’s coming and going
Career Paths: coming soon, designed for students & others beginning new careers
Lists: Organize your friends and use the lists to send out targeted updates or customize your
privacy settings more carefully.
Pages: Find useful sources of information or examples in your field and “like” them to get
updates. Many newspapers and blogs now offer this service – check for IIT pages too!
Groups: This tool is changing as Facebook tries to offer better solutions, but it can be used to
set up groups where people who aren’t “friends” can still communicate privately or publicly.
Organizations: Like Facebook pages, you can find organizations or websites to get updates
Lists: Organize your contacts or find other people’s lists and follow those lists to see what’s
happening in that area.
Hashtags: Useful to find a topic across a group of users, whether or not you want to follow
each person. Great for “backchannels” at conferences or webinars, for instance.
Apps: Schedule your updates, update multiple networks at once, organize contacts or view
archives of hashtag searches
Marketing
• Know your audience – don’t put effort into something they won’t see
• Know your tools – match what you’re doing to what people expect to see and use
• Keep it interesting – dead space is not good, be willing to experiment
• Be flexible – be prepared for unexpected issues, but don’t shut down opportunities